Tag Archives: George Lucas

This week El Kaiser shares his ickiest Tech Term yet and J.D. tells us all about Twitter’s new “Troll Patrol”. In the news NASA’s Orion spacecraft completes a successful test flight; the first Coder In Chief; Facebook modifies its search function; Princeton University puts thousands of documents written by Albert Einstein online; Amazon rolls out 4K streams; the FCC wants wireless carriers to ste up efforts to protect consumer data; researchers discover Linux-based malware that’s been active for years; the fallout from cyber-attack on SONY’s networks continues; and the father of the videogame passes away.

The past week has been great for space. Last Friday, NASA’s Orion spacecraft completed a successful test flight, with a launch at Cape Canaveral, orbit around the Earth a few times and splashdown in the Pacific less than five hours later. Just a day later, on Saturday, NASA’s New Horizons spacecraft woke up out of its hibernation state just in time for its 2015 mission to observe Pluto, the celestial body many of us still consider to be a planet at the outer edges of our solar system. And lets not forget our old pal Curiosity (left) is still hard at work up on Mars. The geographical data gathered by NASA’s busy little rover over the past 28 months of exploring has helped scientists study and theorize about the lakes and streams that used to exist on the Red Planet in warmer times. (Oh, and a Canadian company wants a little cool Mars action itself – Thoth Technology is calling for a crowdfunding campaign to make, among other things, a “Beaver” rover to represent Canada on Mars.)

The Federal Communications Commission continues its rampant news grab as it still contemplates Net Neutrality. The agency has now found time to release a 140-page report on mobile phone theft and has some suggestions for wireless carriers to help protect consumers and their data.

In happier movie news, there’s a new extension for the Google Chrome browser that gives you an interactive tour of Middle-earth so you can celebrate the opening of the third-and supposedly final movie in the Hollywood “Hobbit” trilogy properly.

If you were completely thrown by our reference to the “Yub Nub Song” in the opening minutes of this week’s episode, that’s understandable. You’ve obviously had the misfortune of only ever having seen the post-1997 versions of the classic finale to the epic Star Wars saga, “Return of the Jedi”. A victim of the “Special Edition” massacre, all Yub Nubbing was replaced by the generic world music blandness of “Ewok Celebration” in the subsequent soundtracks.

Now, don’t blame yourselves! The blame lies squarely on the shoulders of a certain bearded and pompadoured filmmaker from the Bay area of California who just couldn’t leave well enough alone. As a public service for all Gen Y and Millenials deprived of the vocal stylings of those fluffy little cash cows, I present, for your viewing and listening pleasure, the “Yub Nub Song”…